


Static.

by GiveMeMoreDetonation



Category: None - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 18:20:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1698008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GiveMeMoreDetonation/pseuds/GiveMeMoreDetonation





	Static.

Static  
Prologue:  
The morning was an ominous scene right from the beginning. Clouds in many shades of grey and off-white bedaubed the sky whilst raindrops gently fell from above. Outside, the grass wasn’t just dewed, but entirely soaked, roots lapping up the sheer amount of water seeping through the soil. Roads were lubricous and hair frizzy from the cloudburst. 

It was one of the more minuet ominous events of the day.

Somewhere, a lady on a mobility scooter rolls onto the train tracks, somewhere another child looses it’s first pet.

Somewhere, another person dies of a heinous disease. Another innocent deer is hit by a car. Another person is thrown out to live an odious life on the street.

The weather was the least of most peoples issues.

Donna Larskon was not one of those people.

Well, not yet anyway.

Her eyes nictitate sleepily as she awoke. Looking out her silver rimmed window with it’s open curtains, the first thing she noticed was the insipid,banal skies. 

The second thing she noticed was that she was alone in bed.

That was an anomaly of sorts.

The pounding headache and the nausea was the next thing she noticed. 

She sighed as she rolled onto her back, staring at the white ceiling. Her hand moved to her forehead to push away a stray bit of hair. Her other hand moved from her side to her belly. She longed to feel it kick, to feel it do something that would prove to her that the little child inside was still alive.

There was only one reason she’d kept it to begin with. 

She desired it’s innocuousness. She wanted to be loved by something, someone, without a tainted past, without an ulterior motive. She wanted to caress the child in her arms and know she brought it here, she gave it life. She wanted to protect another young life from ending up like hers.

Of course, the baby didn’t move as if on cue.

That stuff only happens in cheesy romance novels withered old ladies read as they go to bed at night.

Sighing to herself, she sat up slowly amongst her sheets and blankets which ranged from magenta to pale violet in colour. She blinked slowly, as if for dramatic effect as she looked out her window again.

As she began to take in the rather dreary sight outside, the nausea, or morning sickness to be specific, began to increase, and she quickly darted for the bathroom.

The en-suite itself was probably one of the nicer parts of the slightly derelict home. It seemed to be recently renovated, tiled with fresh white tiles, and lacking in mould. Dressed only in a white singlet and matching undies, Donna bent over the sink. She felt bile mixed with her last meal rise from her stomach and throw itself into the white basin, ruining the blissful ambience of the room.

Tears gently dripped from her eyes, mainly from the pungent smell of the sick. She felt it coming again, and with a huge retching noise, she vomited once more.

She brushed loose hair from her face and looked in the mirror.

Dark circles rimmed her eyes and her blonde hair sat slightly messily, ending in the middle of her back. Her green eyes looked tired and worn, but she was still indisputably pretty. 

She took a deep breath and muttered to herself, “I need a shower.”

She promptly wandered across the rather small room to the shower and turned both knobs as far as they would go. She crossed her arms across her stomach, each hand grabbing her singlet, and pulled it off. Carelessly, she tossed the garment on the ground, pulling off her underpants.

She stepped into the water which was slightly too hot, but her care factor remained dormant at zero.

After letting the water soothe the goosebumps caused by cold lining her arms and legs, she lifted the shampoo from the rack on the wall, and squeezed a rather copious amount into the palm of her hand. Slowly, and with a distinct lack of care, she massaged it through her hair, closing her eyes to prevent shampoo from seeping into her eyes. 

Soaping, conditioning and shaving all seemed to be unnecessary in the mind of Donna Larkson, so after rinsing the shampoo from her now lathered hair, she proceeded to turn the shower off and step out onto a white bath mat. This room seemed to be the epiphany of white. 

Pulling a towel (A white one at that.), from a rack on the wall, she wrapped it around her hair, wringing water from it before draping the towel around herself. 

Not bothering to really dry her dripping legs, she wandered into her carpeted room, aimless as per usual.

She bent down to rummage through the pile of clothes messily dumped by her bedroom door. Tossing clothing articles over her shoulder, trying to find something clean enough to wear, she came across one of her many small, black pregnancy shirts.’

Tossing it on, she pondered how much she despised these things. 

Oh, the pros and cons of being pregnant. Of course, the pros were harder to come by.

Under it, she pulled on a simple pair of black leggings, hardly bothering to worry about undergarments. She was pregnant for christ’s sake, no one looked at her as the attractive nineteen year old they once had.

She hardly missed that.

She did miss the feeling she got when a guy held her to him and she honestly believed it meant something.  
She didn’t miss the being let down every time. She didn’t miss the prospect of spending each night with someone entirely different. She didn’t miss sore mornings and remaining bruises.

No, she didn’t miss that at all.

But sometimes, late at night as she lay in bed feigning sleep, she missed the company. She missed the cuddles and the sweet kisses.

It was for this reason that she’d never be truly innocent.

If it weren’t for the baby, she wouldn’t have stopped her one night stands.

The more promiscuous part of her needed them. 

Don’t get the wrong impression, she was embarrassed by her habits. It tortured her to look at what she had become. She remembered being and innocent fifteen year old when she snuck out to the bar that night. She still wished she’d never done it. Every morning when she woke up with a man, or even a woman, beside her, she felt her cheeks turn red and eyes well with tears. She hated herself for it, for everything she’d done.

And yet, somehow, she’d remembered which of the many men was father to her child.

Donald Way.

Twenty years older than herself, she remembered talking to him about his wife. She remembered little else, except that they’d ended up in his bed.

She hated ending up in someone else's bed, it’s harder to get away.

Now fully dressed, hair pulled into a messy ponytail, she wandered into her kitchen, which had cups and plates strewn from end to end.

She flicked the switch on the kettle, knowing there was still water in it, and went to the pantry in hopes of finding some coffee.

The pantry was fairly bare. Six shelves containing nothing but a few two minute noodle packets and a box of cereal. The fridge was similar, containing nothing but a carton of apple and guava juice, a bottle of milk and a slightly mouldy block of cheese. 

On the benches, were an assortment of messes,and a few loaves of stale bread.

She couldn’t exactly pride herself on a high standard of living.

Upon not finding coffee, she turned the kettle off.

She looked around the messy room, knowing she wouldn’t get through the day without coffee.

Sighing, she threw on a pair of black flats and headed towards her car.

Her car was a beaten, outdated and probably un-roadworthy corolla. It was a dark forest green in colour, and Donna absolutely hated it. 

Upon glancing at it’s sheer ugliness, she decided she’d prefer to walk to her destination, wherever that may be. 

She grabbed her purse from the console of her car, and wandered down her concrete driveway, not knowing this walk would be a very fateful one.

Wandering down her road, she looked upon the usual sights. The perfect houses of her not so perfect neighbours, a young girl skipping rope in a park, a pair of teenage girls holding hands and sitting on a park bench, a busker playing guitar on the sidewalk.

The little girl skipping tripped over her rope, and her mother ran to her side. Donna watched as she cradled the girl in her arms.

Donna smiled inwardly at the sight.

One day, she would have that.

One day…

As she reached the corner, she turned left, heading toward a Seven Eleven.

From her position on the side of Chapel road, she could see the service station, and it’s neighbour: the nuclear power plant.

She’d always had a lingering hate for that place, all that radiation couldn’t be safe. And just how secure could a nuclear reactor be?

On the bright side, it meant house prices around here were lower.

She continued her leisurely amble towards the service station, pausing to respectfully grimace at an unidentifiable piece of roadkill.

She walked into the gaily painted bright orange and green store, greeted by a clearly disinterested indian, who served from behind wires.

“One double expresso,please.” She asked, voiced lined with boredom brought on by the mans demeanour.

“Hmph.” Was the only response he gave as he moved to the coffee machine behind him.

As she waited, she gazed around the room, eyes falling on chocolate.

Her lips moved up in a slight smile.

She ambled toward one of the chocolate shelves, and picked up a Flake. Quickly, she reconsidered her choice and picked up a second.

She often had chocolate cravings in recent times.

And cheese cravings, strangely enough.

She sauntered back to the counter, pleased with her choices and reached into her purse, procuring a ten dollar note.

The man took her chocolates and scanned them, still clearly in a shitty mode. He pushed both Flakes and her coffee towards her, sighing.

“That’ll be eight dollars and seventy five cents.” He stated monotonously.

She handed over the ten dollar bill, not bothering to thank him. She took her change, a measly two dollars and fifteen cents, and left the store with no hesitation.

As she was almost off the Seven Eleven premises, she felt the ground move beneath her.

It wasn’t a slight tremble, nor your average earthquake, it was a violent moving of local earth, accentuated with a sound resembling an explosion.

Donna was knocked to the ground by the sheer force of the quake.

She glanced upwards, and watched the nuclear power plant topple down on itself in a mess of smoke.

There had been a sudden, and unexpected, power surge which had caused lights to flicker, a fact Donna had failed to notice. 

After this, the staff in the power plant attempted an emergency shutdown, causing an exponentially larger spoke in power output to occur which led to a rupture in the reactor vessel and a series of steam explosions. Those events exposed the graphite moderator of the reactor to air, causing it to ignite. 

The resulting fire sent a plume of highly radioactive fallout into the atmosphere.

The plume drifted over an extensive geographical area and for many years after, large parts of the contaminated state had to be evacuated.

Only about sixty percent of the fallout landed locally. 

Thirty four people were directly killed by the explosion, all being power plant staff or emergency workers.

But for Donna, it was the beginning of the end.  
* * * *  
“Donna, I’m sorry I have to tell you this, but like many people who were in the vicinity of the fallout, the radiation has caused cancer to spread rapidly through your body.” Her doctor spoke quietly, voice slow, as if speaking to a small child.

Donna’s shock was clear.

Her eyes were filled with tears, and her mouth hanging slightly open, cheeks flushing red.

This wasn’t supposed to happen to her!

She was supposed to give birth to her little boy in two months, and find him a dad.

It was supposed to be their fairytale.

The radioactive fall out and the sudden need to move across the country was the plot twist, and now she was supposed to have he baby boy, her prince charming and live out her happily ever after.

She wasn’t supposed to die.

She wasn’t supposed to loose her hair and become an ugly, dying troll.

She wasn’t supposed to miss half her child’s life.  
“Am I going to die?” She questioned, hands shaking in her lap, tears rolling down her cheeks.

The doctor grimaced. 

“I- I’ll be honest for your sake. Probably. We can put you on dialysis, see is the chemo helps, replace affected organs if we have to, but we detected this too late. It’s spread quickly. I don’t think theres much hope.”

“Will I have my baby?” She sobbed.

“With dialysis, it’s quite possible.” The doctor nodded, smile sympathetic.

“Will this have any negative effects on him?”

“The radiation, or the cancer?”

“Both.” Donna was a mess, she could feel her insides contorting themselves with fear, she knew she was going to throw up.

“No, it shouldn’t.”

Donna promptly threw up, insides spilling on the floor. She shot a fearful glance at the doctor, before running from the room, makeup stained eyes pushing tears down her cheeks. 

The doctors surgery was full of sick people, crying children and people in pyjamas. She despised them all.

Every last one of them.

It’s human nature to ask ourselves, “Why me?” “Why not someone else?”. It is expected of us. It’s a normal thing to wish our own pain on someone else. 

Inside her head, that’s exactly how she acted. On the outside, she was a crazy sobbing, pregnant, teenager running through a doctors surgery being stared at by everyone. 

None of this mattered to her.

She was going to die.  
* * * *  
Donna Way lay on the hospital gurney, wrapped in blankets, cradling a small bundle of blanket in her arms.

Her hair was plastered to her face by perspiration and she was exhausted, but she was amazed to be holding him in her arms.

Finally.

She was so afraid she would never have this moment. 

“What’s his name?” A pretty brunette nurse asked, smiling at Donna’s joy.

“Sebastian. Sebastian Boyd Way.” Donna grinned.

“Way?”

“I want him to have his fathers last name. I want him to find his father one day when I’m gone.” She grimaced a little whilst talking about her own absence.

The nurse just smiled and nodded.  
* * * *  
Somehow, Donna lived far longer than anyone expected.

She surpassed Sebastian’s first birthday, his second, his third, right through to his sixth. 

She knew on that day she didn’t have much time left.

“Mummy, why don’t I have a Dad?” Sebastian asked curiously, as they sat at the table eating a clearly overcooked schnitzel.

“You do, honey. He’s just not here.”

Sebastian didn’t ask any more questions.

He was intelligent, that was clear, he could read fluently and had an amazing vocabulary. He’d only just started school, and already he knew all his times tables.

On this day, he knew the end was forthcoming.

He’d watched his mum as her hair fell out, as her skin changed colour, as she became weaker and sicker.

He knew she was going to die.

He watched as the first drops of blood dropped onto the white table cloth.

In alarm, he looked up at her. She had her hand over her nose, which was beginning to bleed profusely.

As she darted to the bathroom, he grabbed the phone.

He was used to this.

He called an ambulance, something he often did for his sick mother.

It had always been this way.

Once he knew they were on their way, he sprinted to the bathroom. He stopped short in the doorway, watching in fear as his mother stood over the sink crying as her blood messily flowed all over the floor and the sink.

“I called an ambulance, mummy.” The little black haired boy said sweetly, hazel eyes watching her in the mirror. 

She didn’t answer him.  
* * * *  
Donna Larkson’s world ended with not a bang, but a whimper.

At precisely eleven minutes past nine that night, she drew her last breath, hand in Sebastian’s, Sebastian begging her not to leave him.

He fearfully looked up at the nurses, hand still connected to his dead mothers. They looked at each other. 

His eyes darted back and forth, not knowing what to do.

She was dead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1:

I’m Sebastian Way.  
I’m fifteen.  
My mum died of cancer when I was six.  
The radiation from the accident that killed her made me extremely intelligent.  
I hate being intelligent.  
I know the government’s biggest secret.  
They elaborately planned to have me locked up in an asylum.  
They succeeded.  
I’m here being treated for ‘schizophrenia’.

I have to keep reminding myself of these things. This place has the power to make you forget even the most basic facts about yourself. If you can keep yourself through every hypnosis, every different medicine they put you on, every therapy class you take, then they cannot win.

If I don’t give in, I cannot not forget what I know. If I don’t give in, they cannot make me into who they want me to be.

I cannot let the Government win.

One day, I will expose them for who they truly are, a bunch of egomaniacal twits.

They preach transparency, and every dumb hick who inhabits our country believes them, except a small minority.

They go out of their way to eliminate us, these few intellectuals who see right through their elaborate lies, their many hoaxes.

I am one of a few.

I was twelve years old when it happened.

Well, without pretence, I was eleven when it began.

Google is a catch twenty two. I learnt too much from it, I began to see the Governments lies…

And then, I saw the war logs.

To read these logs and have a vague idea of their significance is simple. Any redneck could do it. But, to see the flaws,and the coverups inside it, that takes a slightly more intelligent mind. 

Have you seen the Collateral Murder video?

I’m not suggesting you watch it, it’s a blurry, disturbing, and thought provoking video that could pull expression from Lady Gaga’s poker face. 

Basically, it depicts two American soldiers in a helicopter flying over Afghanistan, both are gun happy bogans.

One shoots a ubiquitous amount of innocent civilians without command to engage, whilst laughing and screaming things like ‘Watch that bugger die!”. They then shoot a van, in which is two children whom are being driven home from school.

A whistleblower named Bradley Manning leaked this to the world through an anonymous whistleblowers platform named Wikileaks.

I’m sorry, I’ve really digressed here. 

My point is, I see through their facade of lies.

Anyway, I discovered their biggest lie, which I shan’t divulge just yet, and they quick caught onto that fact.

Inception of my quietus. 

They had me locked in here, in this asylum, saying my mother’s death (God Bless Her.) had left lasting damage on me, causing my ‘schizophrenia’.

Because here, I can’t tell anyone what they are doing, what they are planning.

Because here, in this place, I am made redundant.

Where I am, I am surrounded by the crazy. But they aren’t dumb, they’re some of the smartest people I’ve met. A very different sort of intelligence, but astuteness all the same.

We have people who live in a reality entirely separate to ours, but for one to imagine such a reality, they have to have a fairly above midpoint cognitive process.

Doesn’t mean their metacognitive process is great, though. Half the time, such a thing doesn’t exist.

I find them fascinating. The way they function is so out of the ordinary, so abstract, so bizarre that one can’t help but to be intrigued by it. Yet,at the same time, I resent it. Why? Because they’re all I have.

It’s human nature to resent yet be interested in the things surrounding us. For instance, have you ever been in a fight, or an overly dramatic but detrimental situation, and you’ve hated, wanted it to end, but at the same time, you know you’re fuelling it on purpose because you’re interested in the drama? I’m sure you have, it’s an extremely common.

For some, the drama even becomes something they crave.

Back to the point, I don’t have ‘normal’ people here, just the mad and the insane. At first, that was fantastic in it’s own twisted little way. Now, it’s tedious. I know them all, there is nothing else to acquire knowledge of.

Plus, all chances of having an intelligent conversation were long ago diminished.

But anyway, on this particular morning, I’m laying in my bed, clothed only in white sheets and a navy fleece blanket due to having kicked my clothes of throughout the night. I’m staring blankly at the ceiling, thinking, brain again overloaded with incomprehensible thoughts,

My mind’s always like that. It tends to overthink and overanalyse everything. I can’t remain on one tangent of thought for a long period of time, instead I get a few sentences of my original thought out, and then my brain will have come up with something remotely relative, and I end up digressing.

Think of having a machine gun in your head. Instead of firing bullets, it’s on constant fire, firing words and half finished thoughts around in your head.

See?

I resent my own intelligence, yet at the same time I’m intrigued by my mind’s own capabilities.

All of this makes sleep rather difficult.

I can’t even remember now where I began. I may have been describing my demise to you, my surroundings, or my current actions. I don’t remember.

I’ll just go on with the latter.

I’m just about to get out of bed and head to the communal bathroom to do the regulation changing of clothes, brushing of teeth and combing of hair. 

I throw the blankets off my naked body, and amble like this through the hall to the bathroom. The insane have no adversity to nakedness of all kinds. From the naked wander, to the late night naked groaning session, nakedness doesn’t faze them here.

So, I don’t feel obliged to make clothes my highest priority.

By the time I reach the bathroom my mind has cleared enough that I realise I have a psychologists appointment first thing this morning.

Cue sarcastic cheering. 

All the crazies are already here, mirrors crowded by insanity ridden teenagers combing their hair lazily, or pulling on undergarments with little to no care.

I pull a pair of grey tracksuit pants in my size from a creamy coloured draw, and a black shirt from the drawer beside it. I left my boxers back in my room.

Do I care?

Not really.

I throw the pants on quickly, carelessly but still with more care than the others. At least my pants are on the right way.

One bonus point to me!

The shirt follows, just as carelessly as the pants.

Bonus point for putting my arms through the right holes, unlike my cohorts.

As others begin to file out of the room, I just begin to part my long black hair with a slightly unsanitary comb that’d been left of the bench. It’s greasy, my hair. And it’s roots are a weird colour as of late. Probably could do with a wash, but I don’t really see the point in here. I only see crazy people and even crazier psychologists.

I swear half my psychologists,psychiatrists and therapists are all crazier than any of the patients.

I’ve made it very clear that I’m perfectly sane. I’ve even been candid about my intelligence. Yet, everyone of the people I’ve met over my three year stay have failed to notice this.

How is it not apparent? I don’t imagine things, I don’t live in a fantasy world, I don’t have imaginary friends, I’m not even depressed after all the time spent in this ludicrous place. I may be an insomniac, but that’s not particularly relative to my sanity. I can hold an intelligent conversation without showing any signs of schizophrenia nor an autistic form of intelligence.

But instead of seeing the inconsistencies in my ‘diagnosis’, they just see me as a puzzle, or a new guinea pig, experiencing symptoms yet to be documented.

Which brings me to pills.

Right now, I’m walking in single file with everyone else to the nurses desk to receive my morning pills, which come in a tiny ass plastic cup. I’m supposed to tip them into my mouth and swallow, not questioning what exactly I’m being fed.

I’m not a mindless zombie, I shan’t take unknown pills unquestioningly.

Sometimes I swear we don’t have any rights in this godforsaken place. We don’t have the right to any form of knowledge, even about our own health, nor the right to reject or consent to things. 

We’re still humans.

Or are we?

Can you really be a human locked inside a white walled asylum with no rights, being fed pills that are designed to alter, if not remove, your personality? Because, in all honesty, I find it hard to be ‘myself’ in here. 

Another question: How does it help ones recovery to be trapped in here with other people as crazy as they are? It would have to have detrimental effects on said person, considering one would feed off the others.

That leads me to believe they don’t expect us to recover, nor leave.

We’re never supposed to leave here. Ever.

Great, that gives me hope for my future.

Well, back to the pills, I do take them from the nurse every morning.

At first, years ago, I used to take them. I thought I had no choice. The orderlies are everywhere, watching your every move. They watch you take them, swallow them, and then make you open your mouth so they can see.

Right now, I tip them into my mouth and swallow them. It doesn’t matter, they won’t stay there long.

Breakfast isn’t for fifteen minutes, so calmly and inconspicuously, I head back to my room, where I proceed to kneel carefully in font of my toilet. I check that the door is shut, not wanting anyone to hear me. I bend my body over the toilet, and place two fingers in my mouth.

There are many ways to do this, but I find that using my fingers is the easiest way to induce it.

I push them deep into my throat, finding the fleshy bit at the back, and wait for my gag reflexes to kick in.

I feel myself chocking on my fingers, tears lining my eyelids.

One gag.

Two.

Three.

I pull my fingers quickly from my throat waiting for the vomit, containing the pills, to arise from the pits of my stomach.

It doesn’t.

Fuck.

I put my fingers back in my throat, holding for four gags this time. I don’t pull my fingers away quick enough, and get them covered in the remnants of the little blue and orange pills.

I sigh, wiping my fingers on the toilet paper roll, and flush the toilet.

I wipe the tears from under my eyes, and stand up.

Oh, how I despise the life I lead.

Practically everyone in here has made an attempt at offing themselves at least once. I understand it, I really do. I see exactly why they would do it. This is not living. This is merely existing.

I haven’t yet. I’m optimistic that one day, I’ll get out of here.

I know too much to just die.

I feel obliged to get my message out there one day.

If I die, they win.

There’s very few ways for me to win, so many ways for them to win. My only chance is to survive, prove my innocence and escape from this hell.

I think hell is a very personal thing.

I don’t believe in any forms of the after life, instead I see the symbolic meaning they have.

It’s a little like purgatory, in theory. Hell is the furthest down parts of your life. The parts where you see no escape, the parts where you've already seemingly reached the end of your road.

Heaven is those moments where nothing could be better.

My effort at describing that was cliche, I know.

I’ve spent most of my life in the in-between, but I’ve touched heaven with the ends of my finger tips, and I’ve dwelled in the bottommost pits of hell.

Now, I perambulate to the dining room where I face the familiar dilemma of deciding which of the crazies I shall grace with my presence today.

In other words, I try to decide where I’m going to sit.

I look around the room, to find one kid alone at a table. He looks new. I don’t remember seeing him before.

I decide to go and investigate.

I slide into the chair across from him and smile reassuringly.

“I’m Sebastian.” I offer as a conversation opener. 

He just nods in response.

I never know how to approach the silent treatment. If I try to draw him out, I could get a full blown volatile explosion, or I could get a sobbing fit.

There’s also the slim chance I could succeed.

The insane are like land mines. Touch one, and you never know what response you’ll get. Maybe it’ll be somehow defunct and won’t have a reaction, or maybe it’ll explode and have fatal consequences.

You really just never know.

Last year, I told one that if they wished to be grammatically correct, they should’ve used came rather than come.

Needless to say, made clear by the fact that I’m sharing this story, it didn’t end we’ll. If it had of ended well, I wouldn’t have told this story, now would I? I corrected a crazy kid’s grammar and he just grinned and said thanks.

I don’t think so.

He pinned me to the wall, and due to my size, or lack thereof, I was unable to free myself as he drove his knee hard into the most delicate part of my anatomy.

Damn, that hurt. I must admit, I have a slightly feminine scream.

After about three hits, orderlies came and pulled him away from me, but honestly, it hurt for days.

I don’t know where I’m going with this.

Anyways, I’m sitting here with this rather silent boy, whose blonde hair floods over his eyes so I can’t even understand what the kid is thinking.

Conundrum indeed.

“Are you going to tell me your name?” I asked, sighing.

He looks up from the staring competition he was quite clearly having with the floor. I can see his eyes now. He looks nervous, terrified even.

“Hey, don’t worry, you can trust me.” I say gently, really having no idea how to comfort him.

He mumbled something that remotely sounded like Daniel.

“Daniel?” I ask. He nods. 

“New here?”

Again, he only nods in response.

I’m really regretting this. I’m really rather relieved when the ‘chef’ rings his bell, telling us we can go and collect our ‘meal’ now.

By meal, I mean a lump of unidentifiable slop on a tray that sometimes resemble mashed potato with a hint of mould and other times resembles peas and corn.

I can honestly say I have no idea what they serve us here.

I do know that eating is a compulsory activity here.

So, I collect my meal, and my glass of water, not bothering to thank the chef,.

What would I thank him for? Feeding me food that only just scrapes over health and safety regulations.

Yeah right.

Breakfast is one of the least exciting parts of my exhaustingly boring day, so I’ll go right ahead to the part where I enter the therapy office I’m subjected to every two days.

The door itself is white, as is everything else in this police, and the man inside is clearly of African descent, although, I don’t know his name and I don’t care to.

“Hello, Sebastian.” He says monotonously and certainly not welcomingly as I walk through the door.

“Hi.” I say more monotonously than he did. 

I stare at him, one eyebrow raised for a few moments before he bothers to speak again.

“How’s it been going, Sebastian?”

“Considering I’m locked up in an asylum surrounded by the mentally insane, and idiot doctors who have no clue, I’m doing superb. How about you?”

“Now Sebastian, there’s no need to be derogatory towards others.”

“No, I suppose there’s not. Albeit, I highly doubt theres a need to lock up innocent sane people, either.”

“Still holding to your claim that you do not have a problem that needs rectifying, I see?”

“Sir, my sanity is not debatable. I’m perfectly sane.” I sigh, remotely sick of having this conversation every two days.

“You know, I really thought that by this point in time we’d have had a break through.”

“Well, it seems you’re wrong then, doesn’t it?”

After that, I tuned out and refuse to answer his questions. He was an imbecile. I had no intention of wasting my precious voice on him.

Some people.

When it was finally over, I left the room without so much as a goodbye.

Next, I was forced to endure the shambolic collective of crazed minds which was known as Group Therapy.

Group torture would be a more apt description of the forthcoming hour.

I take a seat in my plastic chair, looking around at the rest of the circle.

It begins with every participant morosely saying their name, and stating why they are here. I just say my name, not wanting to waste breath on explaining why I was here. I’m not sure half the ‘group’ even have a government in their fantasy world. 

After the circle completes this boring little ritual, the therapist running the therapy asks me why I was here, encouraging me to open up.

I shake my head, looking straight in her eyes, not breaking eye contact.

Like she, or anyone here for that matter, actually care.

Good luck getting me to open up. 

You’d probably have more luck getting the government to expose its secret without my influence. Albeit, they’ll do anything to cover their butt. If they think they’d be better off exposing themselves than letting me expose them, they will expose themselves.

I can guarantee if I got out of here, they’d tell the citizens of our country themselves.

Of course, they’d sugar coat it, make it sound far less dangerous than it really is.

Compulsive liars.

Once they’ve exposed themselves, who’s going to believe a fifteen year old kid whose spent one fifth of his life locked in an asylum diagnosed with schizophrenia?

Absolutely no one.

Sometimes, I really honestly wish I wasn’t intelligent. I wish I was of average intelligence, making my way through without any real difficulty, averaging Cs and Bs with the occasional D. I wish I could’ve just avoided this entire thing.

As much as I’d like to say I’m happy to put up with all this crap for the greater good, I’m not. Stuff the greater good, I’m a kid. 

Well, age wise anyway.

Mentally, I’m smarter than most adults, and I’ve certainly been through more than most adults.

Anyways, group therapy concludes with me still silent, bored and refusing to contribute in any way shape or form. I never do. At first, I spent the entire time mentally documenting the crazies behaviour, now I don’t even bother with that. I’d rather tune out, and do my own thing.

As I exit the room, I have the feeling I’m being watched,

What’s new?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 2  
White lights. Straight into my goddamn eyes. I can’t see anything. But it’s not dark. In fact, it’s too bright. I’m terrified but a part of me believes, just for a moment, that maybe the light is beckoning me to heaven. Maybe it really does exist. Maybe the bullet killed me.

I feel strong hands grip my arms and shoulders, pushing me back onto a gurney of some kind. I scream and kick my legs as I lay, held down by an uncountable amount of people. All hope is quickly annihilated.

My kicking legs are quickly apprehended, and fastened to the table. I struggle against whatever’s binding me, but fail miserably. 

My arms are next, strapped to the table-gurney-type-thing. I writhe beneath them, but can’t escape.

I feel the pain reinstalling itself in my leg, the agonising pain takes over yet again and I scream, choking on hurt. I think I throw up all over myself, but of course, I can’t see due to the lights burning into my eyes which I’ve since shut in a last ditch effort to protect.

I feel a slight stabbing pain in my arm, and know immediately they’ve inserted a drip there. Shortly after, I feel a cold liquid fill my veins.

Black spots cloud my already messed up vision, and eventually, I know I’m falling asleep.

I wake up screaming, a common occurrence to me. I dream so often of that night, the night where I was captured and detained.

Out of the three years I’ve spent in this crap hole, I’ve found few things that’ve remained interesting over a long period of time.

Actually, only two come to mind.

The occasional art classes, and the hallway that’s always locked.

I mean, you do have to wonder what’s lurking behind those doors. My realistic guess is the craziest of the crazies, but sometimes, I like to daydream. There’s all sorts of things hiding behind the white door then.

And the art classes, I’ve noticed, are rare. Once in a literal blue moon, we walk into group therapy to find easels in the centre of the room. Of course, we’re always asked to paint the most ridiculous things and often I just do as I please, but that’s neither here nor there.

Ubiquitous people refuse to paint, which eliminates the rather abysmal possibility of pairs.

I’d hate to paint in a pair, I just don’t think inspiration would flow right. 

We’re not supposed to be inspired though. We’re supposed to paint what they tell us to paint. It’s ironic, really. An apt analogy of how life is in here.

We aren’t supposed to think for ourselves, instead we are encouraged to submit to their thoughts and do only as they say.

Hence, painting is almost a form of mind control.

The fact that I know this is what makes me immune.

Anyway, I’ve walked in, and easels are aligned in perfect arrays in the room. Each has a small table propped up in front of it, with multiple different paints and a pallet. Brushes are rested carefully on the shelf adjacent to the easel.

I move to an easel almost central but slightly to the back. There’s a strategy to this. If I’m directly at the back, I’m to conspicuous as the teacher wanders by, whereas if I’m almost central, I’m far less obvious and quite well hidden. It makes painting far easier.

We all take our seats on small stools, and listen as the teacher dribbles on and on about some inane thing she wants the class to illustrate.

When she finishes, everyone organises their pallet, and begins to follow instructions. I let my subconscious choose what to paint. My brush easily makes strokes that I seem not to be controlling.

I know vaguely that I’m painting a man. I know I’ve seen him before, his eyes are painfully familiar. His longish black hair is rather memorable too.

I just can’t quite place it.

I blink slowly, awakening in an unnatural and extremely unfamiliar position. I’m upright, I quickly realise that. Far slower, I realise I’m being held up by two men, being dragged, shoes skimming the ground. 

I can’t feel my legs.

I can’t feel my arms.

I can’t feel anything.

I want to sleep.

I need to sleep.

I continue to blink, languorously, looking around, hearing but not feeling my feet on the ground. I notice that we’re headed toward a gargantuan white building.

I have my suspicions, but in this lethargic state I’m irresolute.

As I’m being dragged into the place, another person is being dragged out. He could only be year or two younger than me, and is definitely shorter.

He looks me in the eyes, struggling against the two plainly dressed man holding him.

“You’ll never get out of there alive.” He whispers, voice shaky and fearful. “They’ll never let you out of there… Not with your life.” He’s almost crying, he looks terrified, as if sensing impending doom.

I look at him, too sleepy to feel fear, but entirely comprehending what he’s saying.

“You have to be careful, they’ll-“ The boy’s sentence was cut short, as one of the government officials hauling him hit him over the head with his baton.

A guttural scream rises from seemingly nowhere, and I realise it’s coming from my own mouth.

His blood spills out onto the pavement.

He’s not dead, the blow was crippling,debilitating, but not deathly. Still, it’s rendered him unconscious, blood flowing profusely from his head.

He wasn’t going to make it out of ‘here’ alive.

And neither was I.

I look back at the picture, now knowing exactly what it depicts.

I wasn’t particularly impressed by that idea, more terrified than anything.

It was him.

The brown eyes, the black hair, they were his!

I had to hide this… They couldn’t see this picture. They’d kill me! It’s like an act of rebellion around here… Whatever he did, or didn’t do more to the point, it couldn’t be good. If they saw this… I’d end up like him…

…I’d never make it out of here alive.

I look up, into the eyes of my teacher. Stupid move. Rule 1: Don’t make eye contact. It draws attention to yourself. She looks back at me, and probably senses the fear in my eyes.

I’m panicking, I really am.

It feels a little like drowning. My chest feels heavy, and I can feel my pulse in every inch of my body. My eyes feel wet, and I can’t move. I cannot bring myself to move. I’m paralysed, eyes meeting hers, as she walks towards me.

She stands behind me, taking in my picture over my shoulder. 

“Sebastian…” She begins.

Finally, the paralysis’s hold on my body lets go, and I stand up.

I bolt towards the door, unsure of what else to do.

One of the worst parts about being here, is there is nowhere to hide. Resistance is futile. Running is futile.

I didn’t mean to draw him.

I honestly didn’t.

I run to the only place I can think of, even though it’s so obvious. I’ll be found immediately.

Impending doom.

I crawl into my bed, and lay under the covers in the fetal position. I don’t know what else to do. Chaos has clouded my brain, and my thoughts are more scrambled and erratic than usual.

I usually have a rather odd outlook on things. Maybe an apathetic one even. Sometimes it’s almost like living my life from outside my own body.

Like I’m watching it all happen to someone else.  
Like there’s no repercussions.

But right now, I’m terrified. This is happening. This is real. And I can feel it. I can feel my body trembling under thin white sheet. I can feel the tears rolling gently down my cheeks.

I made a big mistake, and I am no longer in control of this situation.

I don’t know how long I lay curled up into my bed before I heard the door open. It creaked open slowly, as if to torture me. 

Internally, I’m screaming, my voice tearing my insides apart, but externally I still have vague hopes that they won’t notice me, a conspicuous lump under the sheets.

I know, it’s pointless, futile, hopeless.

And as the sheets are pulled off my sobbing, shaking figure, I realise this.

I know part of my pessimistic existence is still throwing it’s last ounce of optimism out there, though.

I’m always pessimistic in an abnormally optimistic way. I know damn well that nothing good is going to come of anything in my life, yet sometimes, I still dare to hope.

I open my squinted eyes, as I feel hands grab my arms.

I remind myself resistance is futile, and as they pull me from my bed, I resist the urge to kick and scream.

Because I’m sane, and I can resist these urges.

I let them take me, and drag me down the hall, past all the others, much like the first time I entered this place. This time, I feel myself dragging on the ground. I know I’m still shaking, and probably still crying, and I look absolutely ridiculous.

I suddenly realise where I’m heading.

The unknown hallway.

I’m vaguely curious about what lies beyond the door, but I never really imagined myself entering under these circumstances.

Usually when I picture my entry, the entire asylum is in some kind of near-apocalyptic state, and my whereabouts isn’t quite paramount, so I sneak away. I press my back to the walls as I move in a clandestine manner down ubiquitous halls. I carefully peak around each corner, making sure the coast is clear of suspicious orderlies.

Seeing that it is, I continue, until I reach the door. 

The pin code is always an issue, but seeing as it is my daydream, I just make it up and ironically, I’m correct every time.

What happens next fluctuates.

It depends on my mood really. If I’m extraordinarily bored, as is often the case, it’s often something conspiratorial. Another little secret of the government.

Guantanamo Bay take two?

Something along those lines.

If I’m being entirely realistic, it’s padded cells. Solitary confinement as it is known. This also explains why crazies go missing for days at a time. 

Rows and rows of padded cells containing the craziest of the crazies. Locked away on their own, apparently learning a lesson of some sort, or sometimes just being separated from other people.

In my near apocalyptic daydreams, I free all the people in either scenario, before making my escape and integrating back into society.

I often dream of escape.

It’s odd the things you daydream of whilst in here. One has to entertain themselves some way or another. In a real life situation, a hallway couldn’t hold so many wonders, but in here, it’s one of the most interesting things around.

I do understand why the crazies live in fantasy worlds, it’d be a nice escape from here.

Sadly, I must maintain my sanity and therefore cannot make mental escapes.

I can only plan my real escape.

Not that I’m ever getting out of here…

Especially not now.

I watch one of the orderlies that are dragging me press the pin code, 23 42, into the device on the wall. 

All I feel is fear.

What if my thoughts of Guantanamo Bay Take Two are correct?

There is nothing to fear but fear itself, I tell myself, not remembering where that quote came from to begin with.

I’m dragged through the double doors, eyes darting around in a mixture of fear and curiosity. I try to see what I’m surrounded by.

White walls.

About twelve doors.

It’s padded cells.

I almost sigh in relief.

They’re just going to lock me in a padded cell for a while. I feel the fear subsiding and my usual cocky nature begin to return. They’ll never break me with solitary confinement. I don’t need human interaction. I can cope perfectly fine on my own.

You could toss me in a dark room with a straight jacket, and I’d still be fine.

It’s planning time.

That’s always a bonus.

The orderly who punched the pin into the pad opens the door to one of the cells, and the two orderlies dragging me roughly across the asylum drag me in.

The first thing I notice is that it’s painfully white.

White foam walls. White floors. White ceiling. White toilet. White mattress. 

You get the point.

Everything in the asylum is white in general, but the place has some age to it, which has resulted in cracked paint, mould and faded colour, giving everything an off-white look.

This room, however, is almost unbearably white.

I read somewhere that in Sweden, a white room was built with some type of soundproofing.  
The longest anyone ever lasted in there without going crazy way two hours.

See, what we define as ‘silent’ is never entirely silent, as much as it may seem so. The room in question, however, was entirely silent, and entirely white. It was some kind of cruel experiment, and everyone who ever ventured in there came out crazy.

This room probably wouldn’t have quite the same effects in that short a time, but I swear, left alone in here for a long period of time would have to be detrimental to ones sanity.

I’ll never understand the ways of mental health care ‘professionals’.

I should be fine though, I don’t think that it’ll be overly silent in here, and the white should be overcome able.

I’m placed in the far corner by the orderlies without so much as an explanation.

Bonus point to me for kicking one in the shin as he walked away.

I watch them walked through the doorway, watching me for any sudden movements as they did so. I didn’t moved, I just glared intently at them. They closed the door carefully behind them, and I hear the lock click. 

Escape chances at an all time low.

I heard it click… Damn it’s quiet in here…

I begin to think of ‘home’.

Or lack thereof.

I don’t feel the need to elaborate on my thoughts.

I don’t remember my mother all that well, I really don’t. I remember her death, however, as thought it happened yesterday.

I remember holding her hand, begging her not to leave me alone in this world as though she had a choice.  
I remember her laying in bed watching me, no longer able to speak, but trying to communicate with me through her eyes.

I only took one thing from them: She was terrified.

I wanted so badly to say something profound, and to tell her it was okay to stop fighting, it was okay to leave now.

I couldn’t.

It’s human nature, I was selfish. I didn’t want my mum to leave me, as much as I knew her staying would hurt her further.

Even then, at age six, I knew by begging her to stay I was hurting her. I was making her death far more painful for her than it had to be. I knew damn well, what I was doing, but at the time, a part of me blamed her.

It felt like it was her fault… Her own fault that she was dying.

I know that’s entirely irrational, but I needed someone to blame, and being so young, I never thought to blame myself.

Human nature: It’s damning.

I begged her, tear running down my cheeks causing patterns resembling that of a snails tracks, as she held my gaze, begging me to stop, explaining to me how terrified she was.

The first thing to had been her voice.

Second was feeling. She could no longer feel my hand in hers.

I didn’t let go.

The third was her consciousness, albeit, the machine continued to beep.

The doctor said she could still hear me, as if trying to encourage me to say goodbye.

I didn’t. I just begged her not to go.

It was a long, drawn out process, and I spent hours by her side, begging her not to leave, begging various medical personnel not to allow her to leave.

I think the sheer amount of time it took was the most torturous part.

Eventually, she had none of her senses left, aside from her hearing. Apparently, it was always the last thing to go.

Her hand was limp, but still warm.

I distinctly remember the warmth.

Nurses watched me with sad eyes, as I sobbed. By this point, I’d given up hope. I’d given up begging.

I still didn’t say goodbye.

I was terrible with goodbyes, and had already convinced myself that some time in the future, I’d see her again, be it in death, or in some odd, mythical way.

It was ironic. I’d been prepared for this day on so many occasions. So many times, mum had sat me down, and explained to me that one day, this was going to happen, and that I needed to be strong.

She also promised I’d be okay without her.

Lies.

Even with a ventilator covering the majority of her face, eyes shut, and skin a pale, sickly colour, she was still beautiful.

I remember noticing that.

Her chest began to rise and fall slower, breaths raspy and short, and I knew then that we were only moments away from the end.

The end was nothing spectacular.

No angels descended, no ironic,profound words were shared. Trumpets didn’t sound and nothing abnormal announced her death.

The machine simply flatlined.

It was then that the fear set in. 

And the tears.

I looked in fear to the nurses and doctors I was surrounded by, all of whom had only been here to witness her mediocre death. They looked back at me if only now realising that something would have to be done with me, as I didn’t have a father, and seemingly had nowhere else to go.

I was surprised at the lack of organisation.

Moments later, they filed out of the room, leaving me with her body for just a little longer. I stood, shaking, and continued to hold her hand.

Until it went cold.

And then, I realised I never said goodbye.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 3  
When I finally stop dwelling on the immutable past, I realise I’m seated on my rather uncomfortable mattress with tears ever so kindly gracing my cheeks.

I hardly realise when I’m crying anymore.

It seems to be a common occurrence when I’m on my own.

I blame it on my mind. It loves to overthink and overanalyse inane things that once may have been insignificant to the point where they become a controlling factor in my little existence.

I’ve probably said that already.

I also have a predilection to ingeminate myself.

I never used to, it’s this place. It does idiosyncratic things to you.

In the cell next to me I hear familiar screaming.

I’m adaquetly certain it’s Annalei. 

Annalei is one of the scarce few people in this place I feel I can have an perspicacious conversation with. She’s a paranoid schizophrenic, who is convinced ‘he’ is after her. I haven’t yet determined who he is, but from the occasional psychotic outburst, I have determined that she believes ‘he’ wants to hurt her in some way or another.

Albeit, aside from these rare little outbursts, she actually seems to be rather intellectual. She’s probably the closest thing to a friend I have in here. 

The only downside to this, is she is also a smart arse. She finds ironic and intelligent ways to ridicule absolutely everything, and it often ends with her disappearing for substantial periods of time.

In other words, she gets placed in solitary confinement.

Right now, I can here her yelling something about ‘him’ coming for her, begging for help.

I feel terrible for her, she honestly believes she is in danger.

I’d shout back to her, but I’m refraining sheerly because I’d rather not get us in trouble.

It’s relatively easy to get in trouble around here. Actually, it’s one of the most simple things to achieve in this damned place.

Actually, digressing, you know what? We got told by a priest that we were all going to Hell once!

What, we’re crazy so automatically we’re condemned sinners?

Okay…

Sounds legit.

Anyway, you pretty much open your mouth, you’re in trouble.

They want to think for us,so if we think for ourselves, we’re supposed to go into asylum-purgatory or something like that. The whole system is ludicrous. Annalei sees that too.

We might be the only ones.

Okay, we are the only ones.

I never quite came to understand fully how she ended up in here, because paranoid schizophrenia is usually something quite manageable and a lot of suffers even have asymptomatic periods. For her to have been institutionalised for such a mental issue, she’d had to have had some kind of…

Outburst…

But not one alike her little outburst we see nowadays.

No, it would’ve had to have been something monumental.

Or maybe I’m just a conspiracy theorist. I do have to entertain myself somehow. I am human. Boredom messes with my head just like it does yours.

In here, your fantasies are all you have. Your daydreams, delusions, imaginative creations, whatever your doctor would like to call them are the only things keeping us ‘sane’…

Or, in most peoples cases, making us insane…

Speaking of doctors and insanity…

I hear the lock click and know pretty much immediately that it’d have to be my psychiatrist or whatever the insane person may refer to themselves as.

The door opens, and a tall woman enters, trailed by an orderly. She looks at me for what feels like an eternity before even opening her mouth. I don’t make eye contact.

Eye contact bothers me somewhat.

I may have taken the quote ‘Ones eyes are the window to their soul.’ far too literally. I don’t want people seeing inside me, understanding me. I want to be inaccessible, incomprehensible. I want to be the enigma they never could unwrap. I don’t want them to know who I am, what I think, what I do, who I am. I hide everything so deep inside myself, and I don’t want them to know that. I don’t even know everything about myself because I’ve hidden it so far away.

Who am I kidding? I don’t know who I am anymore.

I don’t have a family. I don’t have hobbies. I don’t have friends. I don’t go to school.

I am nobody in so many ways. Nothing defines me. I’m an intelligent ‘schizophrenic’ loner. I know a secret. So bloody what? What has that ever gotten me?

A lifetimes informal imprisonment.

Yay! Imprisonment!

Cue mass cheering.

Ahem… Yeah. Likely.

I really am a nobody, upon pondering it. There isn’t a single person outside of this place that knows who I am, aside from my good friends over at the Pentagon, or lack thereof.

I’d like to imagine that people outside are rallying for my release, exposing this conspiracy the same way they did for Bradley Manning, but they aren’t.

Why would they? I am no one.

How would they? They’ve never heard of me, never heard of my plight.

I’m doomed. I always have been. Right from the moment that radiation penetrated my mother’s stomach and affected the functions of my brain, I was doomed. Only now do I realise that any shards of hope I was vaguely believing could save me are non-existent.

She comes in, and reclines against one of the padded walls, still attempting to make eye contact with me. I’m still avoiding her eyes. She has mousy brown hair, resembling sandy mud, and is donning a white knee-length skirt topped with a beige blouse and brown cardigan.

And yet, her outfit is still far more entertaining than my own.

“Sebastian?” She asks, her voice demanding my attention. I make a ‘hmph’ noise, somewhat encouraging her to continue. “Don’t look at the ground please.” Cautiously, and rather nervously, I look into her eyes with my own red, puffy ones. “Better.”

“Who are you?” I manage to ask, voice quiet and shaky. For some reason, I don’t feel as defiant as I normally do. This whole thing has shaken me.

“Dr Velsen. I’m your new doctor.”

“What a revelation. Tell me, are you as incompetent as my last doctor?” I ask, sarcasm creeping back into my voice.

I’m a sarcastic little twit.

“I’d like to think you and I shall have a better outcome than what you achieved with your last doctor.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“That’s true. It was an indirect answer to a derogatory and unnecessary question.”

“That’s true.” I mimicked.

“Now, Sebastian, could you at least make an effort? Give me a chance?” She asked.

I must admit, she seemed slightly more intelligent than my other doctor. Maybe I’ll try and be a little less condescending.

I shrug. “I could give it a try. Don’t expect much though.”

She nods understandingly. She’s less condescending herself than Dr Whats-His-Name was.

“You aren’t stupid, so I don’t intend to treat you as such. I’ll get to the point. Can you explain what you painted this morning?”

I so badly want to sink into silence, put up a barrier and refuse to answer her, but I do feel inclined to make some semblance of an effort. Mainly because I’d like to be released from solitary sometime in the near future.

Bonus point for self preservation.

I sigh. “First, I’ll clarify. I don’t think when I paint. My brush just kind of… Goes… It’s like dreaming, I think. I think my subconscious is more in control of my cognitive process than my conscious during it.

Albeit, it is my own decision not to paint what the teacher tells us. I find it rather difficult to paint such mundane things.

I was just painting, unaware… And when I finished, I panicked because I realised what I’d drawn.

I don’t know his name, or who he is. But on the day I was taken in here, he was being taken out. Two orderlies were carrying him from the building kicking and screaming… And he spoke to me. He told me I’d never make it out of here alive. He repeated himself, becoming frantic, and then, he was beaten. The orderlies beat him… And I watched his blood on the pavement…

Sometimes I dream about him. It’s more of a nightmare. I watch him fall to the ground, and the blood run through the cracks in the ground. I hear my own screams, and feel the fear in my chest…

I wake up and… I cry… Every time.”

I finish there, not needing to say anything more, feeling as though I’d explained myself sufficiently. She just nods.

“Do you have nightmares often?”

I nod.

“What about?” She asked quietly, trying to be reassuring whilst still getting what she wants.

Possibly slightly manipulative, I note.

Bonus point for noticing.

“My mum… The most common recurring one is where I walk into the bathroom and her nose is bleeding… The blood covers the white floors, the sink, the bench, she’s trying to stop it. I’m watching her in the mirror. It’s the beginning of the end.”

“And I suppose that really happened?”

“Yeah.”

“Any others, Sebastian?”

“Her death. It plays over and over in my mind… Even when I’m awake, I see it.”

There’s a short silence, before I interject. “Where is he?” I say quickly, voice panicky.

“Who, Sebastian?”

“That boy. Where is he?”

She doesn’t answer me. I shoot to my feet, leaning into the corner.

“Where is he?” My hands are balancing me against the wall. I’m afraid of myself a moment.

She’s just taking down notes.

“Where is he?” I scream. I don’t know why I’m so panicked.

“Sebastian… Calm down please.” She says quietly, not looking up from her pad.

I launch forward, wanting to shake the answer from her. The orderly quickly grabs me, wrenching my arm behind my back. I whimper at the sudden pain in my shoulder blade. He forces me down into a sitting position on the mattress. I sigh, and look back up at her.

“Are you ready to cooperate, Sebastian?”

“Mhmm.” I mumble, incoherently. This conversation quickly became tedious. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to divulge to her before I feel like I’m letting her in.

I don’t want to get close to anyone. They leave me behind. Every time. I can’t put myself through that again.

“What are you thinking about,Sebastian?”

I hate her ending every sentence with my name.

“You using my name in every sentence kind of bugs me a little. I don’t know why, it just feels weird.” I push the words out awkwardly.

“Alright then, I’ll try and refrain.”

“Thanks…” I mumble.

“Why are you here?”

“Am I supposed to come out with something profound and mystical? It sounds like a trick question.”

“No, you’re not. You’re supposed to tell me why you’re in this place. I know why, but do you?”

“Yeah, I do. But you people never want to hear it. You’ll tell me I’m crazy.”

“You said that not me. Come on, tell me.”

“I knew one of the Pentagon’s biggest secrets. They faked my insanity and had me locked away in here for a mental problem that I don’t have.”

“If I explain something to you, do you promise not to interrupt me?” I nod. “You’re a schizophrenic, Sebastian. You believe the Government have a vendetta against you, when, in fact, they do not. You’re not crazy, far from it actually. You just need to learn to accept the help you’re given.”

“I’m not a schizophrenic!” I retort, again standing bolt upright. “They made it up! They’ve got you too!” I yell.

I’m crying.

I don’t even know why. I’m a mess for no real reason. Maybe the situation I’m in is finally hitting home.

Everyone around me thinks I’m crazy.

I’m not!

I swear I’m not.

I find myself curled into the fetal position, screaming into my hands. Shouting unintelligible things. Rocking back and forth. Sobbing. My vision is screwed up, and I don’t even know why. 

I don’t know whats going on.

Eventually, her voice breaks through the silence I had created for myself.

“I’m administering a sedative, Gerard.” She speaks quietly.

I feel…  
* * * *  
I wake up in a bed risen from the ground. Clearly I’m not in my cell.

I open my eyes, still groggy from the sedative. 

The infirmary.

They must’ve taken me here after my breakdown.

After I’ve had a chance to wake up, two orderlies come and escort me back to my cell, telling me I was being monitored for detrimental effects caused by the sedative, and was now able to be returned to my room.

That was a short lived escape…

Although, reprieves are always short lived around here. More to the point, a reprieve is only a delusion. A false hope.

You don’t escape this place in any way, shape or form.

Anyone who thinks otherwise deserves to be in here.

I probably just contradicted myself, as I am sure I have done multiple times throughout my many rambles. Please excuse that. 

I tend to do it a lot.

I do have some weird tendencies. 

Right now, I’m deciding whether or not it would be calamitous to do handstands against the walls for entertainment.

I mean, the rooms padded, so why not attempt gymnastics?

I could do a back flip off the toilet!

Stuff my need to be released from this room at some point in the forthcoming future, I’m doing a backflip!

I stand up from my position on my bed, and wander over to the toilet. I don’t put the lid down, for fear of it breaking beneath my feet. Instead, I put one foot on each side of the bowl, and balance that way.  
She smiles at my failed attempt.

“You need to bend your knees more, and bend your head back. Try and see whats behind you as you jump!” She laughs, demonstrating one more time. Water splashes everywhere as she gracefully does a back flip into the water.

I watch intently, ready to try again myself. I clamber out of the pool, and stand on it’s edge. When she arises from the depths of the water, I throw myself backwards, using my knees to spring upwards, pushing my head into my back. I see the trees behind me as I spin in the air.

I crash into the pool, having completed a perfect backflip.

“I did it mum!” I gasp, spitting chlorine-filled water from my mouth.

“Indeed you did.” She smiles, treading water.

I bend my knees, not quite to a squat because that would cause the majority of my weight to be situated below my knees, meaning I couldn’t spring upwards.

I bend my head backwards, ready to enjoy the ‘lovely’ scenery behind me.

“1-2-3…” I count to myself. I push upwards, throwing my heels over my head.

I don’t know what goes wrong, but I haven’t managed to spring up enough.

I crash. 

I hadn’t completed the flip before gravity dragged me down. I’ve hit my shoulder really hard on the ground, which isn’t quite as squab covered as the walls. I scream. I don’t know what else to do.

I need to get somebody else's attention. I sit up against the wall, straining my eyes to see my shoulder.

It’s not right. 

It’s sitting out of place. I scream again, and again, trying to coax an orderly into my room.

The lock clicks.

I sigh in relief, and break into tears at the sheer pain. My breathing is hard, the pain is excruciating.

“What the hell?” The orderly mumbles, before turning to shout down the hall. “Someone get a goddamn stretcher! I think he’s dislocated his shoulder.” 

I scream in pain.

“God knows how.” He mutters. He waits in the doorway, as if unsure of what to do as I cry to myself.

After what seems like a substantial period of time, a nurse with a stretcher appears. I whimper as they carefully lift me onto it. 

I scream a rather obscene word extraordinarily loudly as the orderly accidentally nudged my shoulder as he pushed me into the centre of the stretcher. I shut my eyes, attempting to take deep breaths and ignore the pain. I can feel the stretcher rolling beneath me. Every now and then, a wheel catches on the ground and the stretcher lurches ever so slightly, causing me to whimper in pain.  
Remind me again why I backflipped?

I can’t work that one out as I’m wheeled into the infirmary. The response is almost instantaneous. The moment I open my eyes, I’m surrounded. I have nurses and doctors surrounding my stretcher. 

I close my eyes again, taking the deepest of all my breaths so far.

“Sebastian, did you hit your head?” A female doctor asks.

“No.” I cry quietly.

“Okay, we’re going to have to pop this back into place, alright?” She places her hands on my shoulder. I flinch. I scream no, but she begins to count. “3-2-1…” 

I hear it snap.

The pain is a delayed reaction. Only when her hands move off the shoulder does the pain fill my nerves….

I look out into my glory surroundings, dazed by the sound of gunfire.

I had a fair idea what was going on around me, but the Army officials in S.W.A.T vests were never a pleasant sight.

I pull my body up off the ground and look into the sun induced fog.

I hear the sound of the gunfire long before I feel the bullet ripping through my flesh…

There’s many different types of pain.

Theres the pain you crave. The self induced pain. I’m not sure I ever understood that pain. I never understood the crazies who would steal a plastic knife from the communal dinner table and hack into their wrists until they produced droplets of blood. I never understood the kids that would come in here with scars lining their entire arms. Apparently it’s converting the mental pain into something physical. Apparently it stops ones brain for just a little while. 

Then there’s pain like waxing, and plastic surgery. Pain we happily accept for a mediocre end result.

There’s the pain inflicted upon us. Like surgery, and needles. Drips. We’re supposed to just deal wi

There’s the pain accidentally inflicted. We all fucking hate that.

Right now, I swear I’m going to pass out as they put my arm in a sling.

“Just until it heals itself, honey.”

 

 

Chapter 4

 

The lights never go out in here. I have no elucidation as to why. The room is always lit by the isolated bulb on the roof. I’ve yet to find a light switch, and I know this room inside out.

That’s by no means an indefatigable feat when the room is like a padded shoebox.

Well, if shoe boxes were square in shape.

Maybe that juxtaposition is a stupid one.

There are a lot of bovine comparisons, come to think about it. People compared finding something to a needle in a haystack. Who would bother looking through a haystack? Or the ‘the skin of your teeth’ cliche… Imbecilic.

Although, I’ve discovered that people in general are stupid. 

People tend to desecrate the English language with every sentence they contrive. They infallibly find some way to misuse words, and use ‘me’ rather than ‘my’ or ‘them’ rather than ‘those’.

This discombobulates me.

How does one go through life not knowing how to speak correct English? It isn’t that recondite. Use the right word in the right context, and I won’t feel the urge to strangle you.

I’m not exactly a homicidal being but people who make no effort to speak their own language correctly honestly bring out the homicidal creep in me.

I’ve met people to whom English is their second language and yet they speak it better than those to whom it is their first.

I find that fact very depressing in itself.

What I find even more depressing is the sheer coldness in this room. You’d think due to it’s padding it’d be rather warm in here, but’s it’s the middle of the night and I’m freezing.

Although, maybe freezing is another of those stupid cliches. I don’t hate it as much though.

Sometimes, I’m confused about my own opinions on things. Sometimes, I’m on the fence, able to be easily swayed to either side, and other times, I just have no idea where I stand on things.

Or sometimes, I just contradict my own opinions.

Hence why I hate being asked to describe myself. I don’t know myself.

Everything about me is as much of an enigma to me as it is to them. I confuse myself on an hourly basis. I don’t think I’ve ever known myself. I change far too often for that.

In the past few days, I’ve had multiple meetings with my doctor. Since my little backflip incident, she felt it necessary to question everything I do, including going to the toilet on one occasion.

I really don’t get that. I needed to go to the toilet. Duh.

By now, I’m aware I’m being transferred. I’m also aware that I am far too difficult for them to manage, and if I had of made a slight effort, maybe I’d be allowed to stay.

I don’t mind leaving. It’s a chance to explore somewhere unprecedented, which is an anomaly when you’re living in an institution. So the idea of being somewhere different, surrounded by a new bunch of crazies is almost desirable.

Any variation of the normal is somewhat expedient.

Imagine living a single day over and over knowingly. Nothing changes, and you are aware of this. You can predict what is going to happen, and nothing excites you any more. Your life is monotonous and repetitive. Unchanging. Ceaseless

This is almost how my life is. There are slight variations, but nothing that titilates me. A change in the menu, or a slight confrontation with a crazy don’t bring joy to a futile life. So, occasionally, I lash out in my own way. Cause my own twisted excitement.

I… Oh let’s say, draw a picture of a person seemingly hated by those in my current residence.

Or do a backflip in the padded room I’m locked in.

This is what passes as entertainment.

In the real world, entertainment is defined by things such as TV,movies, and music. Games and sports. Things that in many different way, everyone shares.

In here, entertainment is yet another form of brainwashing.

We paint what we are asked to paint.

Other than that, we aren’t even given entertainment. Painting is the only bitter form of refuge, and even it is tainted by the repressing ways of the faculty. 

The faculty is conspiring with the government. I know it. It is so obvious.

Why else would I have ended up here to begin with?  
Why else would we be stripped of all fun the way we have been?  
Why else would there be so much secrecy?

It makes sense when you think about it rationally.

What normal institution takes it’s residents outside to beat and most probably kill them? I don’t think any normal institution does, to be frankly honest.

I do have to worry slightly about where I’m going. A part of me knows it has to be worse than this. A more optimistic part of me still hopes against hope that it’ll be better than this.

Futile hope seems a pivotal part of my life, I have come to realise.

Once upon a time, the most pivotal point of my life was my own petty sorrows, and my intelligence was my inevitable high.

I moved between foster homes, whinging and complaining. Oh woe is me. Everything was ‘terrible’. I thought I hated life. I thought nothing could get worse. I was a young child, who thought I had it bad.

I thought my lack of parents,and my obnoxious IQ level were the bane of my existence, and something I would never overcome. 

I honestly thought my life had sunk to it’s rock bottom. I thought nothing could improve, and nothing could deteriorate. I really thought I’d been fucked over.

Older, less naive, and none the wiser, I now know that as a child, I was stupid. I was so lost in my own pity, that I had narrow sight. I only saw so few of the injustices of the world.

So many flew right under my nose,like this institution for instance, and I was quite capable of seeing them had I been willing.

Had I not have been a selfish twit.

Anyway, I shan't bore you with the monotonous details of my rather abysmal day spent lying in wait for my transference.

Eventually, some orderlies (I’m estimating around three or four.) open the door, and walk into my room. 

“Why, are you not going to say hello? Common courtesy you know.” I joke, feeling abnormally light about the situation.

I got a chorus of affirmative grunts in response.

Although, I’m not entirely sure how one tells if such a neanderthal sound as a grunt us affirmative or not.

Moving right along.

I stand up, not wanting to be dragged to my feet, and let them put their muscled hands on my somewhat frail arms. I take a deep breath and know this is the last time I shall ever need to face this room, but probably not the last time I shall face one alike it.

I walk calmly with them, not bothering to resist. I see, for the last time, the halls I used to frequent, walk past those with whom I used to converse, I walk passed the door to what once was my bedroom.

And oddly, I feel nostalgia.

This place was home. As much as I like to downgrade it,and vex those inhabiting it, it was my place of residence for the past three years.

But when thought about deeply, it was more than that. It was filled with the only people making any effort in my life, as small as it may be. 

Therefore, it is home, and a part of me will miss it. A relatively small part at that.

Anyway, not dwelling on random facts for once, I am very quickly removed from the premises, not given a chance to say goodbye to any of my peers, everyone knowing full well that I didn’t really have these elusive things called ‘friends’.

The moment I walk through those front doors, my eyes burn. The glare from the sun in burning right into my pupils. Light…

I haven’t seen it in so long…

I see a road inhabited by many cars and trees growing from the grass. I see average people taking average walks.  
I relish in the sheer normality I am suddenly surrounded by. Passersby look at me, quickly deciding that I’m another crazy person and I almost laugh at them, I’m probably more sane than they are, and far more intelligent, I suppose.

I look out at the normal surroundings, and despite the arms holding me from ever integrating into them, I feel free.

Albeit, I will never truly be free.

I sacrificed, unwillingly, my freedom an extraordinarily long time ago.

Still, for just a moment the breeze, the sun, and the sky allow me freedom. I shut my eyes and just listen.

Birds. Footsteps. Car engines.

It’s amazing. A part of me didn’t even think this existed any more. For a while, the institution had been the only thing left after the highly anticipated apocalypse, and I was preserved safely inside, away from the ‘world’ that had once been.

Of course, I had known this wasn’t true, but I enjoyed the thought that their was an entirely logical reason for my detainment. It improved the situation ever so slightly.

I enjoyed immensely the few moments I spent walking toward the car, looking at such normal surroundings, and pondering the fact that I would be able to see such sights the entire car trip. 

It allowed my to enjoy this transference just that little bit more.

As we approach the car, a slightly beaten green Corolla, an orderly asks me, almost sarcastically, it I’ll be able to sit in the car normally without being restrained.

I just nod, ignoring his condescending manner.

One of the orderlies places me in the backseat of the car. I do up my own belt, enjoying the independence brought on my doing so. Another orderly sits beside me, ready to grab me if I have an outburst, whilst the others take the front seats.

I move slightly closer to the window, and look out into the world, feeling relieved by the normality I was experiencing.

I’m in a car, unrestrained, looking out upon the world.

This is as normal as it gets for me, and I love it.

I see parks, filled with young mothers, and even younger children. Schools, with kids running around the playground, blissfully unaware of the horror that surrounds them in their perfect world.

Their only concerns are their distinct hatred of school, and which toy they’ll beg both of their parents to buy this weekend,

I see pubs that already have acquired a herum of seedy men lurking outside, beers in hand. I see young couples wandering,hand in hand, down the sidewalk, too love stricken to see the wrongdoings of those meant to protect them.

It was a common denominator between all the aforementioned. They all had something preventing them from seeing the truth. An ailment of sorts. Each of them was blind, and each for a different reason.

Somehow, I knew this by just glancing upon them.

Maybe, I’m just coming to random, unfounded assumptions.

As we continue to drive, I continue to see things the ‘normal’ person takes for granted.

I’ve always wondered how one defines normal. My dictionary once informed me that it was conforming to a standard or expectation, whilst I see this as correct, I do also have to question it.

It seems the word normal has evolved into something else entirely. Originally, normal was just the standard most conformed to, therefore the majority.

Now, it seems like something one must. Conformation and normality are regulation, in a sense. A regulation set by the highest up people in our society, and enforced most heavily by petty teenagers with nothing better to do.

Normality, a simple word referring to conformation, is now an expected state of mind.

If one is not normal, than they are not accepted by the majority.

Another, perhaps smaller, form of injustice in our world.

As we drive, I watch the supermarkets and stores roll by, I watch luscious paddocks filled with horses pass through my vision in a matter of seconds, and I feel relieved.

Yes, I am going to continue to repeat similar sentences over and over, you must understand the sheer greatness of this.

I’m continuing my little voyage to who-knows-where, when time stops.

Not in a literal sense, but more a figurative sense.

Everything around me has slowed down. It is as if I am seeing everything in slow motion.

I watch it come towards me… A car resembling a mafia van, and I feel my heart skip multiple beats.

I feel myself anticipating what comes next.

I feel curl myself into a ball after watching it skid across the road. 

I feel my throat clamp in a scream.

Then comes the impact.

I feel the two cars collide, entirely unceremoniously, and I hear the ominous screech metal makes when one car grinds against another. I hear the wheels push themselves into the ground as someone jams their foot down on the break.

I use words such as ‘feel’ because this is another of those out-of-body experiences I’m sure I once described.

I’m hardly aware any of this is happening, I just feel the physical impact, yet the mental impact ceases to exist. 

I know what’s happening. A car hit ours.

Which is ironic, since the likelihood of such a thing happening to me on the first drive I have taken in three years is almost non- existent. Yet it happened, I know that much.

I’m still curled into my ball, hiding from the inevitable, as the rolls over itself into the ditch on the side of the road. I can feel the chair in front of me clamping down on my leg…

I feel the entire car close itself around us.

Impending doom again feels my veins.

My vision begins to blue, darkening from the outside, and a cold feeling rushes over me.

I shut my eyes…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 5

 

 

Upon my awakening,the first thing I notice is the sheer pain coursing through my body. I couldn’t even begin to tell you exactly where I’m injured due to the fact that the pain has flooded every nerve in my system.

I’m also fairly sure I’m concussed. I’m dizzy,and unable to comprehend what’s happening around me. I can’t remember what got me into this predicament, and I couldn’t even try to tell you what this predicament is exactly.

Somewhere amongst the pain, I feel hands, Not my own, someone else’s. I don’t know what they’re doing, and quite frankly, I don’t think I want to know.

I’m not aware of any of my own actions. I’m possibly screaming and kicking out at whomever is touching me, and I’m most probably crying, but again, I don’t know. I’m hardly even conscious. 

I’m also unaware of time, hence I don’t know how long it was between my awakening and the time when I force my eyes open.

Through my hazy vision I see a man. I can’t describe him in any detail, for his face is obscured by a Guy Fawkes mask.

In case you’re wondering what in God’s name a Guy Fawkes mask is, it’s those white, vaguely creepy masks often associated with Anonymous, a pro-transparency group whose aim is anonymity.

They’re pretty cool (I know, a very un-Sebastian description, but what are you going to do?) really. 

I close my eyes, unable to force them open any longer.

Slowly, feeling begins to return to my body. This is both a good thing, and a detrimental thing. On one side, I can feel my body again, meaning I am a little more in control of my own reactions, but at the same time, it makes already unbearable pain far more intense.

When weighed up, pretty much everything has the ‘Good Thing,Bad Thing’ sides. There is nothing in this world that doesn’t have a slight negative repercussion of some sort.

Wow.  
That was un-profound and pessimistic.

The pain is causing my brain to think of the most useless crap right now.

I can feel myself breathing, amongst other things, and I breathe deep, trying to push the air into my stomach.

I’m fairly sure that method is called diaphragmatic breathing… It’s supposed to activate a different part of your brain, latinergo controlling the nervous system, and calming you down. Yet, at the same time, people who suffer from panic attacks shouldn’t do it, as it amplifies the anxiety.

I’ve never been sure if it works or not, to be honest. It’s hard to tell.

To me, it’s just a distraction. If I focus on pushing my breath deep into my diaphragm, try to watch my stomach expand like a balloon, I’m no longer focusing on my pain, or whatever it is I am trying to distract myself at the time.

People use a lot of things to distract themselves. You’ll find people in awkward situations kicking things around in a weird attempt to distract themselves… 

When I was in school as a younger child, we’d have to go to church sometimes. It was a rare occurrence, and something absolutely no one enjoyed or looked forward to. As I would sit in the pews, I would have absolutely no intention of actually paying any attention or reconciling myself in any way shape or form, so I’d sing songs in my head.

Digressing, I don’t believe in God. 

I might have at one point.

As a very young child, in fact, I’m fairly certain I might have believed in him. But, after mum died, and I was shipped from home to home, I decided he wasn’t real. If he was real, would he have let these things happen? I doubt it. I doubt that if he were real and really loved us all, none of this would’ve happened.

People can make excuses for God all they want. They can tell me a million times that he’s just challenging us, that we call all get through this, and I won’t believe them. They’re wrong.

You know what else is wrong?

Religion in general.

It’s ludicrous. Especially when you see young children dressed in balaclavas, or head wraps and know that they had no choice.

Children born into most religious families these days aren’t given a choice. All their life, they will remain in this religion, because that’s all they’ve ever known.

Their parents put blinkers on them, and shelter them all their lives.

And then there’s islamic religions…

If your God wants you to wander around looking like death himself in the blistering heat in the middle of the summer, than I pity you. I really do.

Organised religion sucks.

Rant over.

I mumble something so incoherent that even I don’t know what I was trying to say, and the young man above me finally speaks.

“Hey, Sebastian. I’m going to pull these pants off to have a look at your leg, alright?” His voice is nice…

Again, my use of the English language is abysmal at this point in time.

How many times can I use the word abysmal?

Damn me.

I don’t want him to pull them off… That’s going to hurt… Even I realise that.

“No!” I groan.

“Sebastian, I have to…” How does this random know my name?

I feel him unbutton my paints, and I moan.

Ha. That sentence sounded as sexual in my head as it does as you read it. It wasn’t an innuendo, I swear, it just hurt.

As he pulls them down my thighs, I feel remotely violated. How do I know this guy isn’t a gay pedophile?

I don’t. My point exactly.

“Stop…” I mumble.

He pulls them off anyway.

And I feel myself fading from the pain…  
I’d say there was blackness, but my eyes were shut, so it wasn’t exactly a development.  
* * * *  
When I awake this time, I can open my eyes immediately. The lethargy is no longer plaguing my pain riddled body.

I blink at the ceiling, letting my predicament piece itself together in my head.

The car…

It crashed, didn’t it?

That’s it!

The car crashed on my way to the asylum! And…

And then I ended up in the car with a possible pedophile..

Please tell me I imagined that part?

Nope? Okay then.

Right now, I’m in a white room. It’s not the sort of white room I’m accustomed to though. There’s a chandelier, and a walk in robe… And what seems to be a en-suite.

It’s well furnished. Double bed clad in white, with two bedside tables. An old, fancy mirror… And ubiquitous chairs.

I’m not in an asylum.

I’m not in an asylum!

Wow…

Imagine being locked inside a room for three years without so much as a window. It’s torturous. You feel so…Restricted. So clammed up. You don’t have any rights, and you know it.

Then, imagine the moment you realise you are bordering on freedom. 

The sheer thought brings tears to my eyes.

 

I make a slight effort to get up, and end up screaming out in pain.

My legs…My arms…My stomach… My whole body. It all cries out to me, pain shooting through every nerve I have. I had entirely forgotten the extent of my injuries.

I pull the white blanket off, and take a look at myself. I’m wearing nothing bar my boxers. Oh, wow, not weird at all. One of my legs is bandaged between my ankle and my knee, and the other leg is covered in rather deep cuts, varying in length.

My stomach is similar, clearly having had pieces of ‘car’ pushed into the skin. My whole body is covered in similar bruises and contusions.

I push my head backward into my pillow and sigh.

I’m not getting up any time soon.

I don’t know how long I lay here before I hear the door open, and a man walk in. I open my eyes, and look in the general direction of the man.

Well, he hasn’t taken the mask off.

And he’s bloody short.

“Hello, Sebastian.”

“Uh, Hi.” I answer sarcastically. This is ludicrous! This random man may have ‘saved’ my life, knows my name yet I can’t even see his face. I don’t like things being kept from me.

“You feeling okay?” He asks sympathetically, sitting beside me on the bed. If I wasn’t incapacitated, I would move away.

“May I ask why you care?”

“Sebastian…” His voice is muffled by the mask. “You know things. This operation to save you has been in the works for ages.”

That wasn’t quite an answer, but I’ll pass it. I have something far better to question.

“So, your plan to rescue me, was to possibly kill me in a car collision? Genius. I’m dealing with masterminds here.”

“I- That wasn’t exactly supposed to happen. We got lucky.”

“You call that luck?”

“I suppose not.”

“So, who are you? And don’t give me the ‘We Are Legion, We Are Anonymous” spiel.”

“I can’t tell you yet…”

“Don’t trust me?”

“I think we’re all on the same side here, but I can’t be sure. Are you willing to entrust us with the information and help us bring it to light?”

“I-I… Yeah.”

I must admit, I am vaguely excited. I have escaped and now have the chance to expose the government the way I had always wanted.

As much as the pain caused by it is debilitating, this is the best day I’ve had in a long time.

Green eyes.

As the fire burns behind us, they’re so bright that they burn into my soul.

But they’re lifeless, unblinking and…

He looks started, as my body goes rigid, and I haul my knees to my chest…

“What’s wrong, Sebastian?”

“I saw her…”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Forget I said anything.”

“Well, uh… Do you want to come out of here? You know,get something to eat or something?”

“ ‘Spose.”

Already sitting up now, and in immense pain, the guy seems to pull a wheelchair from nowhere, and helps me into it.

The sheer pain is torturing me. It’s unbearable.

He pushes me out of the room, and into another equally as grand.I begin to wonder if I’m dreaming all this and really lying in a comatose state in a hospital somewhere. It’s quite possible… It seems a more likely scenario than this.

I shut my eyes just for a moment, and take a breath, trying to ignore the pain rippling through my body.

“No chance you have anything for the pain, do you?” I ask, voice raspy due to the tears I’m holding back.

“Of course.” He says, almost monotonously. He pushes me over to a cabinet in a room clearly the kitchen.

The house seems to have incredibly high ceilings, so the fact that it’s old is rather obvious. Not old as in dilapidated and derelict, more old in a beautiful, graceful way. The furniture choice accentuates this look well.

He opens the cupboards, and the first thing I notice is the sheer amount of pill bottles. There’d have to be hundreds. All labelled, and full.

Why the hell does this lot need this many pills?

‘Uh…Let’s see… Codapane… Codine…Codine Forte!”

“What’s that?”

“Codine and paracetamol. It’ll probably make you somewhat drowsy, but considering where you’ve been, your pill tolerance should be pretty high, so it may not even affect you.”

He’s probably right. He tips two into his hands,and holds them out to me. I take them in the palm of my own hand, and wait expectantly for a glass of water.

He just watches me…

I raise an eyebrow.

“Oh yeah. Right.” He wanders across the room in an alacritous manner. Pulling a glass from a rack by the sink, he fills it with water. As quickly as he had walked away, he walked back to me, and handed me the glass. 

I swallowed both the pills in one gulp, immediately noticing the foul paracetamol taste.

I shudder. 

That stuff is more gross than the little blue ones I’d been fed for so long, and those were pretty disgusting.

Anyway, after this he offers me food, and I decline, feeling sick from the pills and the pain.

Right now, I wanna know what, and who, I’m dealing with here.

And why the secrecy when they clearly know so much about me?

So, when he wheels me into some kind of meeting room with three other men donning the same mask, my first question is ‘why’.

“Why am I here, exactly?”

One of the masked men answers. “Because, Sebastian, you are a very intelligent young man… You know something no one here, or anywhere, has yet figured out. All we know, is it is game changing.”

Another weighs in. “You want to change the game, don’t you, Sebastian?”

I nod slowly, unsure of what exactly ‘changing the game’ entailed. 

The third chuckles, and elbows the one who’d earlier been wheeling my chair. “Plus, this guy had a penchant for you.”

I need my own mask to hide my blush.

“Shut up, or I’ll tell the kid your name!” Came a quick, and angered reply.

“I don’t see why we can’t tell him, you know. He’s going to find out eventually. You can’t exactly to expect him to trust us when we won’t even tell him anything!”

“Just be quiet!” 

“You all realise I’m still here, correct?” I piped up.

“Yes, yes we do, Sebastian. Thank you for making it obvious.” The one who I’m going to refer to as ‘One’ for ease reasons, snapped at me.

“No need to get snappy!” I roll my eyes. “And by the way, I’m sitting here in my boxers, and aside from the awkwardness that’s causing, it’s also cold.” 

“Right…Right.” One nods, realising only now that I may be in need of clothes.

“Your clothes won’t even fit him!” Another laughs. They’re right. One is a short little man. “I’ll get him something.”

I think I need a coffee. This whole situation is ludicrous.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 6

Have you ever stopped to wonder: What is life?

You probably haven’t, for seemingly, life is just…Life, and there is nothing to question.

But, for a moment, question it. Think about it. What defines the term ‘life’?

What is ‘life’?

Well life, my friends, is an illusions. It’s a name used to give purpose and meaning to pure existence. We exist. That much is true. But life, in the context it is most used in these days, adds purpose. ‘Life your life to the fullest’… All that crap.

But in honesty, we merely exist, therefore can lack purpose.

Where am I going with this, you ask?

Nowhere.

I just thought I’d tell you the first random that popped in my head.

Moving right along now… 

I did ask for a coffee, and needless to say, One did jump at the request. But, unfortunately, my pill tolerance was lower than expected and I fell asleep before I’d had little more than a sip.

What a waste of nice coffee.

When I awoke, I was back in my bed, and far less groggy than I had been upon my last awakening.  
And in far less pain. Codabine forte or whatever it was I’d been fed had worked quite well clearly.

Albeit, my injuries were still debilitating and that was getting on my nerves. I almost preferred the confinement of the asylum, because at least I could move without requesting the aid of randoms.

The flashing lights and sirens brought me back to reality, something that I’d lacked in the past few moments. Something I craved to escape.

Something I needed to avoid at all costs.

I looked down…And as the police cars approached…All I could see was blood.

The blood ran on the pavement…Lit up by the red and blue lights approaching. It is then I realise the atrocity I had committed…It is then I realise what my subconscious was capable of.

As they approach, I come to the realisation that I need to run. I realise that I’ll probably be caught anyway, but the risk is one worth taking.

I turn away from the blood and push my way through a fence of the edge of the road. I don’t know what’s in the is paddock, and quite frankly, I don’t care. I have to run. I have to get away.

I open my eyes, and sweat coats my body…And I know that I’ve seen it again… That night.

Except, I don’t know what took place on ‘that night’.

Fragments return to my mind, and I begin to understand more…But if you asked me to explain what I was seeing, I couldn’t.

I don’t know how one forgets an entire night, especially one that seems to hold such significance. To be honest, I have this overwhelming feeling that this particular night might define me in some major way, yet I can’t understand it.

I want to see it in full. I feel as though it may have been my undoing.

I really do.

So, maybe, there was more to my containment than meets the eye…And I’ll never know.

When I try to think about it, it doesn’t come to mind. I sit and try, and my mind just refuses to give up any more than it has to. And in the end, I just frustrate myself to no end.

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I’d never know.

I’ll probably never know a lot of things. I’ll probably never be integrated back into the real world enough to know anything.

I’ll forever be sheltered by those around me, because I’ve been separated from the world so long that I do not understand it. 

I will have missed so many things…

And I’ll never be able to catch up on it all…

It’s at this point that I remember something.

Somewhere in this world, I have a father, and a half-brother. They probably have absolutely no idea I exist, and they probably couldn’t care less. But they exist… They’re real.

I don’t know how that’s pertinent, but sometimes I just wonder how different life would’ve been had I have lived with them. I doubt everything that has happened to me would’ve happened.

See, it was easy for the government to take me and hide me away somewhere never to be found, because no one cares about me. I am nothing. I have no one. No one will notice another orphan kid gone missing.

I was vulnerable, and over-exposed.

The latter was my own fault, I lacked the skills to encrypt my data, and lacked the sense to keep quiet, and hence gave myself up.

I think it’s called a hamartia.

A fatal flaw.

Anyway, I hear the door opening, and suppose it’s One coming to see if I’ve awoken.

“Hey, Sebastian.” He says sweetly, probably smiling.

Oh, wait, he’s always smiling because of that damned mask.

“I’d prefer it if you ceased using my name since I don’t have the pleasure of knowing yours. It’s only fair.” 

He just shrugs. “Whatever then.”  
He comes and sits beside me on the bed, and again, I want to move away but can’t… The pain caused by doing so would be far worse than the awkwardness caused by not doing so.

I look up at him, almost scornfully.

This entire thing is risible. I’m living in a seemingly luxury house with a bunch of enigmatic mask-wearers who refuse to explain anything to me… Whilst I’m incapacitated by the pain they caused by crashing into my car.

It’s hardly better than the institution.

“Do you ever plan on explaining this all to me?” I ask.

“What do you mean,Sebastian? I told you what’s going on. We just want your help.” He sounds as though I should be understanding of this already.

“But then what? I help you… Help people I don’t even know…And then what happens when it’s over?” I ask, almost glaring at him.

“It never ends…Sebastian, you know that as well as I do.”

And suddenly, I almost think I know that voice…

Then I remember that it’s beholder is dead… I cognise that the voice can’t be his.

“Elaborate…” I almost whisper… Kind of already understanding.

“Do I really have to, Sebastian?” He wasn’t pleading, he was simply confirming that I already knew.

And what I knew, is between him and I.

For now.

I look down, avoiding his glance. 

“Are you okay?” He asked, sounding more concerned than he should.

“Yeah, I think so. This is all just a bit much right now, that’s all.”

“Understandable.” He sighed. “I don’t wanna pressure you into anything, you know, coercion, but it’d be really cool if you could help…” His last words faded off.

“What’s it like now?” I ask vaguely.

“What are you referring to?”

“Life. The world. Everything. I’ve missed three years of my life.”

“Hm… Be specific.”

“What do you know about my detainment?”

“Nothing really. You just kind of disappeared off the grid..And I did some… Research?”

He was very nervous and jittery for someone leading a revolution…

Nervousness is sometimes a trick of the mind. Some things, if not excessively thought about, wouldn’t cause half the problem they do. For instance, most people would be fine going up in front of their class to give a speech, but if one person says they’re nervous about it, everyone else thinks about that until they too are bothered by it.

A lot of things, like nervousness, are an illusion.

I mentioned life…And I suppose death is an illusion too.

Normality is an illusion. Although, it’s a far more literal illusion than the others. Look up ‘normal’ in a dictionary. Done?

You should have found some answer about how normal is conforming to a usual or expected standard. Latinergo, normality is pretty much the same as conformity. It’s all about expectation. Normality, is the most conformed to version of weird,and therefore, in the sense it is used it today, is an illusion.

Conformity is stupid in itself, and therefore normality is stupid.

Biased logic. I probably only say that because I’m nowhere near normal.

Oh well.

Anyway, he’s nervous.

“Why so… Trepidatious?”

“What?” He asks, looking startled and confused all in one.

“Nervous.” I laugh, amused by the lack of comprehension.

“I’m not!” He came out with defensively, and far too quickly for my liking.

“Really? Why all the stuttering then?”

“Sebastian, I have a stutter. It doesn’t mean I’m nervous.”

That’s another thing I do a lot. I tend to make assumption prematurely, and without a lot of basis. Usually, I’m incorrect,and I look stupid.

It’s really not an unusual thing to do. Have you ever just walked passed a person and assumed something about them? You have, I can guarantee it. It’s not exactly an anomaly. You do it constantly, as do I. The odd part is, you probably don’t make it obvious to that person as I do.

Right?

Right.

Anyway, I now look slightly foolish, as I probably should’ve realised the reason behind the stutter, and in hindsight, it really was kind of obvious.

* * * *  
Once the sheer excitement caused my my most recent predicament subsided, I actually began to be of some use. The fact that I suddenly had a laptop, with wi-fi mind you, on my lap was a little overwhelming…

I had pretty much assumed that I’d never experience the sheer wonder that is the internet again… It’d had been far too long…

I still managed to get as far as turning the thing on…But, whatever OSX Apple was using these days was entirely foreign to me.

“How the fuck…” I mumble to myself.

He leaned over my shoulder and placed his fingers on the trackpad, quickly moving my cursor to what seems to be the dock, and opened an internet browser.

I have no idea what it was called, again I hadn’t seen it before.

I feel really old and disconnected at this point.

Is this the point in time where I start croaking the words, “So what music is hip with you kids nowadays?”

Ha.

Old people stereotypes.


End file.
